What a great and balanced review! I am especially pleased that you point out that part of the weakness you perceive in STR-1 is partially due to your lack of expertise with it. You're not alone there and I am wondering if perhaps a little paradigm shift might help? If we think of STR-1 as the way to go for modelling that '57 Les Paul then we set ourselves up for failure because I just do not believe that such would be possible. However, if we look at STR-1 as a means to mangle and manipulate sounds in which we break the guitar/string paradigm then STR-1 becomes more appealing.
There is always a lot of discussion on various fora concerning the inability of even Fairlights to produce a guitar feel that would fool a guitarist. I think this is valid for the simple fact that keys and guitars are completely separate beasties. I have yet to hear a guitar synth that sounds/feels like a piano that would fool a pianist.
I wholeheartedly agree with you on your assessment of Kurzweil's superiority in terms of orchestral instruments. I am not a big fan of brass and really do not worry about brass patches but I use strings and orchestral stuff a LOT. I LIKE the orchestral stuff in Kronos, but I LOVE Kurzweil's strings.
I am kind of on the fence concerning CX-3 versus KB-3 however. I like the warmth in the Kurz organs and I feel there is more tonal variety from Kurzweil's KB-3.
Man you are preaching to the choir though when it comes to VA capabilities of Kronos. My ONLY complaint THERE is why Korg didn't put portamento in PolySixEX but other than that, the VA is really killer. AL-1 is amazing but quite weird to me; I feel about it as you do with STR-1.
MOD-7 really surprised me. While it was marketed as this great approach that gives us FM, it really does so much more and yes, how cool is it that we get a DX7 in the bargain! Being a Kurzweil aficionado - sorry Sharp, I know you don't like Kurz
- one would think that MOD-7 would be a piece of cake to understand, but even with the tutorials, I can't seem to get my head around this engine and yet in many ways, as Dan from Korg suggested, MOD-7 is a lot like Kurzweil.Thanks for the great review!! It was nice reading something that DOESN'T compare or does a "versus" approach in terms of which keyboard is "better" like the rather pointless Kronos vs. Jupiter 80 thread. BOTH are great and what is "better is highly subjective. Your review was honest and it was based upon your experiences GIGGING with this beast. So many reviews come from studio only musicians and while I certainly value their opinions, I want to hear from other road warriors like me who take our babies into biker bars!!
Ahimsa,
Vlad